Coping with Grief

[rav3n]

i'm so sorry you had to go through that @mnh i can't imagine the pain and confusion you would've felt. i'm so glad you've got your grandchildren who keep you going. and we appreciate you sharing with us. sitting with you 💗

also just wanted to let you know i've edited your post (i've removed some descriptions and added a content warning sign) as some of those details can be triggering/upsetting for the community to read. since you're a new member, i know it might be easy to miss so i've linked our community guidelines here if you wanted to check it out: Guidelines and technical support - SANE Forums 😊

[tyme]

Thank you for sharing @mnh @Snowie @Shaz51 @Appleblossom ,

Grief can certainly be such a difficult space to sit in.

@mnh , I'm sorry to hear about your young son. I can hear how hard it is for you. Do you have supports to help you through? 

Remember, there is no set timeframe for grief. Every one is different when it comes to how they grieve and how long this grief process is.

It's important we make space to talk about it as it can help with the grief process.

[MJG017]

@tyme 

- What have you found helps with grief?

- Are there any experiences of grief you'd like to share?

Well, that's the thing.  Maybe cause I was adopted and I always knew.  I mean I don't remember ever not knowing.  Which makes sense to me, considering my adoptive mother would tell everyone she ever met, whether i was comfortable with it or not!  So i grew up not feeling close to anyone and like there was no where i really belonged.  That there were no people I was a part of.

So i kept everyone at a distance my whole life.  So when members of my family died, it felt more like finding out a neighbour you have the odd friendly chat to has died.  I used to sit in funerals, seeing everyone else upset and think "what is wrong with me?!"  "Why don't i feel anything?"  Obviously this didn't help the feelings that I wasn't worth that much and that keeping to myself was the right move.  That distance just built over time.  Things have improved now and there are some people that i do feel close to and would miss terribly and i feel that i would struggle with that grief a lot.  But they're all still here.

So i've never really felt that much when someone i knew had passed.  I had no idea what it would feel like, apart from just being sad and wishing the person was still alive.  Until last Sunday.  I knew it was coming but reading the news just felt like... i dont know... Like i would do anything to change it, or even for one more message.  Like an overwhelming sadness that sucked the air out of my lungs.  I can't really explain it.

So, are there any experiences of grief you'd like to share?  I guess I can now.

What have you found helps with grief?  Does anything?  Time maybe.

[tyme]

That sounds so hard @MJG017 . It's like you've grown up knowing you aren't really 'part' of 'them'. As much as people tell you to be happy that you are loved, I feel that having a sense of belonging is crucial to one's wellbeing. 

Thank you so much for sharing.

I sure have experienced grief in my life, and the initial shock can really hinder a person's mental health recovery. 

I feel I'm better at coping with grief now, and the timeline is reduced as to how long I mourn for. But no, it's not easy.

[MJG017]

@tyme 

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That sounds so hard @MJG017 . It's like you've grown up knowing you aren't really 'part' of 'them'. As much as people tell you to be happy that you are loved, I feel that having a sense of belonging is crucial to one's wellbeing. 

Not that many people told me that, but it's hard to trust people when you feel so separated from everyone.  You grow up seeing everyone with their families and being so close, you notice how a lot of them look similar.  You look at yourself, and your own 'family' and you think "what is wrong with me?!", "Why don't i have that?", "What did I do wrong?".  Ask a kid growing up with these questions and no one notices you have them, so no one tells you otherwise, what other conclusion can a child form?  You're a family of one and families look after each other, so you have to take care of yourself.  No one else will do it or can be trusted to do it.  It took me the best part of 50 years to start to think differently.

I think the lack of real grief comes from that.  You never get any emotion support and no one really seems to care how you're feeling so lesson number 2 is learnt.  Feelings are never displayed.  You have feelings, and see how you life is going compared to everyone else and assume feelings are bad and should be buried as deep as they can be forced.  That's what everyone else does surely, because on one ever shows them to you.  And I must try harder to be like everyone else!  At any cost!  How can anyone love me if i'm not like everyone else?

As you get older and that lack of trust to let anyone close turns those lessons into self-fulfilling prophecies. Which reinforces them and the worse the loneliness gets, the more the rules are reinforced and the deeper it gets.

If you're really, really lucky one day you meet someone who makes you doubt the rules for the first time.  that downward spiral stops and you take the pause to slowly start to see the truth.  But so much damage is done.  You know you'll never climb out of the hole you've made for yourself, but you try to climb as much as you can anyway because anything else is giving up.  And if obeying those rules all your life has taught you anything it's never give up! Even when it makes no sense to keep going a certain way you never give up.

Or... maybe 8 hours sleep in the past 48 hours is having an effect. 😄

[tyme]

I hear you @MJG017 . So it's like a lack of connection altogether to the point of not feeling. 

Then when you finally did connect e.g. with your partner, what was it like? (If you feel like sharing) 

[MJG017]

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@tyme wrote:

I hear you @MJG017 . So it's like a lack of connection altogether to the point of not feeling.

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@tymeIt's hard to explain because until i was 43 and me my partner, it's all i knew.  I could see people had these strong connections with other people, but i only knew how it looked from my point of view and could only imagine what it felt like.  To feel alone and not feel close to anyone was just normal for me.  I guess its a bit like being born blind.  You know you're blind, and you know most other people can see, but you're left to just imagine what that must be like.

I always thought that if i was ever lucky enough to meet someone who wanted that sort of connection with me, I would be able to change and leave all those old doubts and fears behind.  Everything would be fixed.

But then I did meet her and it became clear that she didn't seem to mind having me around, I found it was much harder to change than I thought.  Even when i started meeting her family, those same fears and awkwardness around other people was there.  I still had a lot of issues even being honest with her about my feelings.  It still just felt to weird to talk like that with someone.  12 years later, i'm better at it, but it still isn't easy.  My health issues over the past 2 odd years has probably brought on more improvement than the previous 10 combined.  She tends to think being on the cancer treatment and having no testosterone since Feb 2023 is the main reason for the changes... she's probably right.

It's just really hard to change something that is so ingrained.  It's not that I don't know what to say.  I can go through it in my head 100 times until it feels like a perfect normal, simple, and easy thing to say.  Then in the moment, it just goes back to feeling so unnaturally strange that I can't do it.  It's bothered my a lot the past 12 years because I know its unfair on her and it's like i'm breaking that promise I made to myself for if I ever found anyone.  I honestly have no idea why it is just still so hard.  I don't think i've ever said "I love you" to her.  Well, i know i haven't because she reminds me.  But it's just that every fiber of my being tells me that saying that is opening myself to something far, far too deep inside that part of me that life has been spent trying to shield from the world in order to allow me to survive. 

I can't really explain it any better than that.  It's much more than fear or discomfort.  Without using triggering examples, it's like tying to hold your breath until you pass out, or not flinching when someone throws something at your face.  You can prepare and think about it as much as possible, but it doesn't matter, the body has these build in mechanisms to prevent us doing it in order to keep us safe.  In this case, it's just a mental one to keep me emotionally safe I guess.  I haven't really learnt how not to flinch yet.

[tyme]

That's so tough @MJG017 . So it sounds like you are still navigating this and possibly will continue to work with these feelings for a long time yet. 

I can see how strong you are, yet these feelings are still there.

Thank you for sharing and trusting us with your story.

[Till23]

I know we've sort of talked about this before @MJG017 but I agree, there are many different types of grief. @tyme 

Most people only think of grief when someone passes away (or a pet - although some people think that's a bit unusual - "they were only a dog").

But there are lots of types of grief, for example, @MJG017's grief over not 'belonging to a "tribe" (a family of your own), a kind of lack of connection.

I think this is a very important type of grief. Humans are social beings and need social connection to thrive I believe. And part of this I think is touch.

I live by myself and have for decades, I also lack meaningful connection, sometimes I will go for months without anyone touching me, not accidentally, but like a hug. When I was diagnosed with cancer in 2022. Apart from clinicians, in the 4 months of surgery, recovery and radiotherapy. I only had 3 touches. Three different people each gave me a hug. And at that time I had my 2 dogs (one has since passed away), which were little life savers.

I was craving some kind of human touch especially at that time. It is difficult for me though because I have hypervigilance and trust issues as part of my cPTSD and my family of origin is not really a hugging etc type family. 

I am in my 60s now and I feel I need to grieve for connections I will never have, intimacy I will never have, children and grandchildren I will never have. So it's still a loss, but a different type of loss to a person actually passing away.

I have lots of other things I feel I need to grieve like loss of the innocence that was stolen from me by the stepfather, loss of childhood, adolescence and much more. They are all losses. Of course, I am not the only person by far who has suffered years of CSA. 

So I think people in general need to be mindful that many people are grieving many different things. Other examples are loss of bodily function if you have a chronic disease or congenital issue (such as blindness) or lost part of you in an accident.

[tyme]

Thank you for sharing that post. It was so clear and totally to the point! @Till23 

It sounds like you have been through a lot in your life.

I also live on my own. The hugs I do get are from kids - my nieces and nephew.